Aug. 22 Over the Hump Bump: Paleo Summit Flashback

I changed the title of this post entirely for obvious reasons.  

So, in T-minus 4 days the world will finally achieve Cholesterol Clarity!  Thanks to NYT Bestselling (hopeful is he) author Jimmy Moore.   The banner states that:

So I looked at the list of experts and recalled this post highlighting how one of them, Dr. Cate Shanahan, blamed carbs for being turned into LDL and then make us fat.  You can browser search to "Skip to here!" and skip the intro stuff.   You might also be interested in my notes from the full presentation, HERE.  I've also had a chance to see what she says about LDL in her book Deep Nutrition, a whole 'nother theory there, and her interview with Jimmy for the book was quite enlightening.  Beware the shaman lab tech and doctor trying to read your bloodwork tea leaves!  If you don't get hungry between meals you are a healthy fat burner ... don't worry, be happy.  

I think it is a damn shame that the Victory Belt Book Mill will be publishing such a book.  I'm sorry but the only thing Jimmy brings to the table here is his incredible bias as regards lipoprotein levels and this is apparent in the introduction he posted online a couple of days ago.   He repeats the lie about his cholesterol levels always being alarmingly high as well, because he starts the clock in 2008 when he began upping the percentage of fat in his diet (which he took to mean upping fat period) on the advice of co-author Dr. Eric Westman (of Atkins fame).   It is also apparent in his choice of experts.  Apparently VB doesn't care to even ensure there is any merit to use of the word expert, but it shouldn't even be enough to be able to rightfully claim the title "health expert" for a book of this nature.  The interviewees should be recognized experts in the field of lipidology in some way, shape or form.  Few on the list meet the standard of even being knowledgeable let alone expert.  However if you're interested in the works of a well known skeptic, may I suggest the essays of Malcolm Kendrick over on THINCS .  Free to boot!

The area of cholesterol is confusing enough without having every so-called expert (as Jimmy calls mainstream experts in his intro) weigh in with unsubstantiated opinions rather than the best of what the scientific evidence is telling us at the present time.   In a comment on his blog regarding Dr. Dayspring, Jimmy wrote:

Dayspring certainly has his position on LDL-P being the be all end all. I let him make his case in my book. But many other of my experts believe it is the size that matters. It’s interesting he left out the Small LDL-P number in the case study. Why? Because it doesn’t support his position.

I have yet to see much evidence for the "large fluffy LDL" being benign or even protective as some were describing it for years.  Indeed that meme seems largely gone from the skeptosphere because newer information has shown that particle size per se is not very predictive ... just like total cholesterol concentration!

So anyway, here's your bump ... in anticipation of some scrutiny of the positions of various experts, Shanahan included, from the book in the future (as time and interest permits ... it would be wonderful if we didn't hear much more about this book ...)

(Note:  The scheduled Thursday bump didn't work as planned, it is indeed Friday today, sorry for the confusion!  Stop by the Asylum bar for a Cherry Pickin' Martini on the house tonight - liver sparing virgin and/or fructose free versions always available.) 

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Original Publication 2/19/12

For those who haven't heard, Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness has put together an online event dubbed the Paleo Summit. Over the course of 4 days, there will be 23 video slide presentations from "experts" around the Paleo world on any manner of subjects. You can see the lineup here. So I "mailed" my registration in early and received my links to some free videos: Interview with Mark Sisson, and Interview with Gary Taubes. I've listened to the first (will have some comments on that one as it fits in with a post in my draft bin) but can't really stomach the drone of a dying TWICHOOB much anymore -- I'll save that for a day of torture ;-) 

I don't really know much about Croxton, though his name has come up from time to time in LLVLC-land.  As much as I enjoy his style, my heart sank when he got to the part with Mark where he laid out his mission as getting everyone to forget the failed notion of eating less and moving more. This is basically what I'm going to discuss about the Sisson interview, because after discussing the lectins and phytates and saponins and whatnot from evil grains, Sisson says that he didn't eat breakfast that morning. Then they go into a kitchen and cook taco-less fish tacos. Basically lemon-pepper seasoning on cubed white fish (halibut if memory serves) fried in a bit of olive oil (sorry, too lazy to rewatch) and served in a bowl with a couple of lettuce leaves. They enjoy their lunch and later in the "day with Mark", the two have a little workout with pushups, pullups, squats and planks. Ummm ... sounds like Mark (who skipped breakfast and said he doesn't eat it most days) doesn't eat a lot, and don't give me this crap that their workout wasn't the dreaded exercise!

Skip to here!

In any case, what caught my eye on the list of preview video-shorts was one Dr. Cate "snacking-takes-liters-of-fluid-out-of-circulation" Shanahan.  In the clip, Shanahan schools us on The LDL-Weight Gain Connection.  This is apparently part of her presentation The Paleo Diet vs. Top-Selling Drugs — Who Wins?  The title of the snippet caught my eye, so I had to give a listen.  Basically Shanahan takes a page from Nora "all-bodyfat-comes-from-glucose" Gedgaudas and decides to trace a little bit of extra body fat back to its source:  why, a bowl of pasta, of course!  You see, pasta becomes blood sugar which travels around to your liver where "the liver picks it up and starts transforming it into fat".  Jeez Louise!  Even Taubes & Co only claim that about 30% of carb in a meal is turned to fat.  Dr. Cate continues ... and this part is just over the top:

One thing all of medical students and dieticians should learn, but we don't, is how carbohydrates make us make more cholesterol. 

C'mon Doc!!  One of the things that continues to be an achilles heel for LC diets, especially in maintenance, is that LDL -- the type of cholesterol she's talking about, make no mistake about it -- tends to go up.  In some cases, markedly, shockingly so!  Not in Human Physiology -899 by Dr. Cate.  You see, she goes on to repeat that the glucose from your pasta is made into LDL in the liver where it's then deposited in your fat cells ... like somewhere on your thighs for instance.  I think Dr. Cate may just take the award for the most incorrect information in the shortest time here: 

• Glucose gets taken up by the liver and turned to fat as some primary metabolic route
• Glucose is converted to cholesterol packaged up in LDL
• Cholesterol is deposited as body fat

When in reality:

• Only carbohydrates/glucose in large excess are converted in small amounts to fat by the liver
• Fatty acids from the liver are packaged up into VLDL
• VLDL particles do transport excess fatty acids from all sources, primarily circulating NEFA, to fat cells for uptake

What is the screening process for the speakers and experts for these things?  None, apparently.   The reason medical students don't learn that carbs turn to cholesterol turn to body fat is because that doesn't happen.  Where did YOU learn that?  And what qualifications do you really have (since you claim you didn't learn it in medical school) to teach this nonsense to anyone?  It seems that someone out there has to counter the promotion of pseudoscience as "expert" fact espoused by "brilliant" minds ... it might as well be me :-)

So, in a move that's sure to further ingratiate me to the movement shakers and fakers, I'll be "live blogging" on the Paleo Summit.  The price is right, and I expect to get what I pay for!